Should pages for directors index works?

Some pages for Directors index works they've made, eg. as of this writing Creator.Rob Reiner.

Creator Page Guidelines has this to say:

On the film side, studios and the like index their films, eg. Creator.A24. Are directors high enough on this "pecking order" to index, or should they be removed to avoid index bloat?

Just going to say that index bloat is a subjective issue that may be fixed somewhat easily by admins adding an optional simplified index display or people getting bigger monitors, so I wouldn't worry too much. But otherwise, I think they can be used for indexes, as the director is pretty important, especially if they're also the selling point (like Quentin Tarantino).

These are both irrelevant to the current state of affairs, frankly. The former might never happen, the latter assumes people are just willing to (and can afford to) get bigger monitors for whatever reason. Some of us are fine browsing on our laptops and phones?

Edited by Synchronicity on Sep 2nd 2021 at 10:02:14 AM

No, I don't see any reason for directors to function as indexes. The index bars are for a certain amount of convenience, but if the director is already wicked in the work's description (which it should be), then it's one click to that article and the list of their works is right there.

Let us not succumb to the temptation of index bloat. Our system is clunky but it's all we're going to have for some time.

Wouldn't be sure with mobile (at least you can quickly swipe and tap with your finger, as opposed to the mouse which can be somewhat slow, plus a 18:9 or 21:9 one can still show a relative amount of stuff well) or laptops (as I feel like their future is starting to become dire in any case due to weaker hardware and things requiring a higher resolution to use which needs a bigger screen but makes them less comfortable). And yeah, not everyone may want to do it, but then again, most things on the web really need a bigger screen to be comfortable to read things quicker (even normal pages) and it's not our fault that those people can't afford a bigger monitor.

I will agree that I don't know if the admins will eventually add a simplified display, so that one does rely on hope. Still, it really is the current state of affairs, as you say. I found it kind of disheartening when people make these kinds of decisions now, then stick to them permanently even when things are likely fixed. But yeah, if it can be reconsidered with a simplified display option, maybe I could accept.

Partly got ninja'd.

Edited by Piterpicher on Sep 2nd 2021 at 5:17:47 PM

Er, yeah, I'd rather see if they fix it first and go from there. The admins are weird sometimes and will often make changes nobody asked for over things people did ask for, so I wouldn't hedge my bets on this particular change being implemented any time soon. If ever.

We need solutions that work right now, and not in four years or so when an update gets pushed through. If that solution is "less indexes", then that's fine with me.

...The only director whose index I'd care about anyway is Alan Smithee, because it'd say a lot about the films.

We are also supposed to include the genre, as well as when and where the work is made in the description. They show up in the index, too. That said, I'm not entirely convinced that we need the director indexes yet. I'm uncertain. We currently have the production companies as indexes, as if they are the primary creators of the work (and sometimes the distribution companies as well, which I don't think is right).

Part of why I fight index bloat is because we already have plenty of things that we track (Creator, Where, When, Genre, Medium) so to me the question is if the studio is more important than the director or not. If who directed the film is more important than the studio that produced it, then we should definitely add index tags for directors.

Director's way more important than studio, IMO.

Brands and logos don't make movies, people do.

Studio indexes are also unnecessary IMO. If it can go in the description ("directed by Puce Mc Grunge and published by Weenievision"), putting it in the index bar is redundant. Ultimately I'd like all of those to be treated as category tags, but that's for a future software version.

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 2nd 2021 at 5:30:23 AM

I don't think it's possible to generalize what's more "important". For famous directors with a very well-known style (Tarantino, Miyazaki, Wes Anderson tier) I can see someone wanting to catalogue their works. For studios that are...more of a team effort (eg. Marvel Studios) or have a certain reputation (eg. A24) that branding seems just as, if not more relevant than who directed it. But I agree neither really need to be on an index at the bottom if they are catalogued well on the Creator pages, since all that tells you is "what they made immediately before" and "what they made immediately after". Especially production companies, which tend to stack up: see the bottom of Manga.My Hero Academia for an example.

Edited by Synchronicity on Sep 2nd 2021 at 6:34:31 AM

Yes, my point is not that they shouldn't be listed, but that it's all "above-the-line" stuff.

The article for Fleebleflorp Studios lists all the works that creator has made. Each work says "produced by Fleebleflorp Studios" in its description. That's literally everything anybody needs to keep track of things.

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 2nd 2021 at 10:56:48 AM

Somewhat unusually I think, I fully agree with Fighteer on the directors and studios question - they need to go into the description. I also agree that having a wall-of-indexes at the bottom of the page is a nuisance.

Remind me again why we deprecated those Wikimedia-style right-aligned info boxes ("floatbox" markup). It seems like they would be ideal for this sort of thing.

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 3rd 2021 at 10:04:21 AM

I agree that an "infobox" similar to Wikipedia would be a good way of solving this. The problem with listing them as indexes at the bottom is that at the bottom, they have a habit of disappearing if there are too many.

The music pages still use them, eg. Music.Lady Gaga.

One problem I see a lot when moving anime series to their localized titles is that many will have multiple studios indexed on their pages (one had more than fifty), and most of these studios are nothing more than subcontractors doing grunt work (in-between animation, usually) on the series.

Well, that goes to another point, which is excessive amounts of metadata in articles. This includes Characters pages. We are not IMDB. We care about tropes, not reproducing the complete fucking credits of every work we cover.

The description of a work should contain its pitch, not its Wikipedia article.

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 7th 2021 at 11:33:19 AM

Bumping. For whatever reason, the pages described here could only be on 29 indexes before indexing starts failing, so I'd like to restart this discussion about the creator pages we should allow at the bottom, if any.

(Another type that hasn't been brought up is record labels, like Columbia Records.)

Would a crowner be appropriate here? Maybe one that lists all the possible types of Creator/ pages that we've seen index stuff (director, producer, main production studio/s, secondary production studios, distributors, record labels, publishers, etc etc), then vote up to allow such indexing for that type?

Edited by Synchronicity on Sep 18th 2021 at 12:33:22 PM

I think it would. If an increasing number of pages is starting to reach the cap (and it's not likely to be changed anytime soon), then we can get rid of the few less useful ones.

Edited by Piterpicher on Sep 19th 2021 at 12:41:21 PM

I'd say Works by Subject is a less useful index than director, because they're essentially indexing by one or two tropes(/chairs). Genres, on the other hand, are a group of common tropes, especially as you get more specific into which subgenre.

I agree. Works by Subject could probably stand to be de-indexed at the least.